When there’s not much to say…

I know, I’ve been a pretty bad blogger. It’s not that I haven’t had the time to blog, its’ that I simply haven’t had much to say. Every day I come to work and wonder if I’ll be inspired to write by something I’ve read or whatever. But I just end up drawing blanks. Thanks to Calli, I’ve been inspired to write a few reviews, but that’s just about it.

Now, I have to put this on here, or it’ll seem neglectful.

Fil finally got her oral surgery date. It’s the 15th. Of this month. That’s Wednesday, for those who are keeping count. At 11:30 today she’s having her consult and then AH! her surgery is in two days. Ugh, it makes my stomach flop to think about it.

We’re both nervous as hell, but I’m trying like hell to overcome those nerves with the excitement of knowing Fil is going to be okay, in one area at least.

This also means that the surgery she needs to remove a mass on her kidneys should get approved! Woohoo! And it might speed her placement with a pain management doctor. Even woohoo-ier!

And… well, that’s it for now. More later once I’ve figured out the gnarly details.

Good morning and Goodbye

Warning: After much jubilation and a little talk of Fil’s health, I start talking about the monthly present. Feel free to move along.

Well, the LMIL is gone. When all is said and done she was a wonderful guest. She folded our laundry when she had nothing to do, she was polite and didn’t bang around making tons of noise. She was sweet to the cats and always offered her help. But a MIL is still a MIL, no matter how lovely she can be. And now we can relax at least for a little while, until Fil starts this new barrage of tests.

Her doctor wants to run loads of tests and scans, he’s even planning on putting her in a clean room if she continues to get infections. We’re really not looking forward to this jump, because her immune system is horribly compromised, so it is highly probable that she will get another infection (her pneumonia aside) and have to go into the clean room. It would be torture for me and Monster. But if it has to happen, it has to happen. In the end I know Dr. P is doing it for her own good.

On the baby making front … there’s … well, no news. I’m not temping, I failed at January’s and haven’t started February’s cycle. But I doubt I’ll jump on the temping wagon. My schedule is leveling out slowly, I wake up at about 6 a.m. every day now, give or take 30-40 minutes. But I would like to have my schedule as level as possible, because adding something like temping into the mix could very well throw my whole schedule into spin cycle and leave me all wrinkly and confused. So, let’s try and get this “wake up at 6 every day” firmly injected into my bones then we’ll tackle the ovulation thing.

I find it very disconcerting that I have yet to get a visit from Mother Nature (I imagine she’s very busy dolling out the red stuff to ridiculously thin women on their vacations) this month. I always talk about being regular and reliable. 90% of the time I am. I will swear up and down to being as regular as the postman, sometimes early, sometimes late but mostly on time.

I’ve counted on a very long cycle of about 30 to 31 days. It’s been that way since I was in the early days of womanhood (you know, 5th grade, 10 years old). The only thing that has ever thrown me off of that schedule has been stress. That’s why I never realised I was pregnant until I was losing it, I’d been under tremendous stress and atributed my late period to that. In fact, it was the tremendous stress that caused me to lose the baby.

I assumed in January that stress was again the culprit for my 5 days late period. In essence, I should be relieved. I was starting quite regularly on the 14th of the month and our anniversary is on the 14th. At least that gives us about a 5 day window in April (if I don’t start early next month!) to revel in our 6 years of togetherness. Well, scratch that, it’s more like 1 week because I am late this month and haven’t even felt the twinge of crampiness I always feel before I start. I think I might skip February, the first time stress has ever pushed my period so far back I miss a month. Bleh x2.

Coming up is the 2 year anniversary of Fil and Monster moving to Texas. On the same day is Buddha’s 7th birthday! And the possible day we’ll recieve our tax refund. YAY!

I’m hoping that that little glimmer of goodness on the horizon will let my body relax and get everything back to normal.

The Weekend and The In Law

I shall be brief about my “weekend”… that is, Thursday – Saturday.

Wednesday evening Fil’s jaw had popped out… again. This time we were determined to go to San Antonio, where the dental school branch of Uni. of Texas is. Everyone we’d talked to (professionals) had said that was the place to go… they accepted Medicaid, and they had an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery office.

So all day Wednesday we tried to get Fil an emergancy appoinment. By 5:30 that evening we were desperate (because the bitch who we got stuck with never called us back) and started our search for an emergancy line. By 6:30ish we managed to get a doctor on the line who told us to go down there and either go to the ER attached to the school or go into the office when they opened and waited until they saw us.

Either way we were makin’ a trip.

So we arranged cheap accomodations with my parents help, got some money wired here by her grandmother and mother, and scrambled around to pack. Our trunk was packed to the gills and we were in San Antonio by 1 a.m.

The next two days were awful. We were able to get her an appoinment on Thursday at 2:30, where the doctors did an experimental procedure (injecting a whole pack of benedryl into her veins) and sent her home with the advice “don’t take any pain medicine” because it might be neurological. They offered to do an experimental procedure where they’d drill a hole in her head to relieve pressure and hopefully let her jaw relax… however there was a huge risk of paralyzing her jaw or killing her. Hm.

The next day was no better, they gave her a ‘script for pain meds and told her to come back in a week when they’d refer her to a neurosurgeon. It was either go home or let them drill into her head.

We decided against the drilling bit and went back to the hotel. It was 11:30 and we said screw it to doctors and decided to go see Ripley’s Believe it or Not! downtown. Instead we got to go to the Guiness Book of World Records and the Tomb Rider 3D shooting game. After the game there was an arcade and I played shooting games with Monster while Fil tried her hand at Mario and Donkey Kong.

The last bit of our “vacation” was truly a vacation. We had a lot of fun and walked around the Alamo and soaked in fresh, non hospital air. We’re going to have to go back, as just a vacation, and see Ripley’s and all the other cool stuff.

We’re so livid at those doctors, over $400 wasted because they wouldn’t fix her. At least we have that under our belt and can move forward with out-of-network.

In other news, Fil’s mom is coming down for a week to visit us. Um… I’ve never met this woman before, I’ve talked to her lots and she’s trying so hard to be a good mom to Fil… I just don’t know. It’s in TWO DAYS. I don’t have the time. Like now, I need to go clean or something.

Exhaustion, part deux… ou trois

This morning at 4 the pain became unbearable for Fil. Her jaw slid out of place one last time and locked firmly in a disfiguring grimace. This time we did some finger-walking and contacted Br@ckenridge (the county trauma center and a very well known low-income hospital, unlike StD@vid’s that very much so caters to those with real insurance). Of course they had her come in, but there was more hope that they would just fix her.

So we bundled up and drove down deserted roads to Br@ck where it became plainly obvious that she was in waaay more pain than anyone else in the ER (even the woman in labor was chill compared to Fil). I think because of her obvious pain/discomfort they whisked her back faster than they would have normally (note: at StD@vid’s they made her wait for.ev.er to get back, they made her sit in the waiting room, rocking back and forth, sobbing and screaming for help. Yeah, that’s nice) and got her a room with relative speed.

To my chagrin we were put in a room RIGHT in front of the nurses station. The night shift at ANY is known to be chatty and jocular, a little less serious because they deal with the weird shit that rolls in at midnight. But at that moment it was so innapropriet to chat about breakfast while Fil’s screams of pain got ignored. I think it was the hardest visit so far, because she’s reached the end of her proverbial rope. The pain was so excrutiating that she was shaking with tears and had to move to make the pain lessen a little.

Her first doctor was hugely pregnant. Now, obviously I have nothing against pregnant women who work, I think it’s fabulous and go girls! but SERIOUSLY!? Putting a pregnant doctor on a physical case like a jaw dislocation just doesn’t seem… right. She was also AWFUL. More flippant and ignorant that Dr. Buch (the first one) and just awful compared to Dr. Boo (the second doctor who reset her jaw). No one seemed to kick into gear until the shift change happened at 6 and a new doctor grabbed her case. I’ve never been so happy to see a towering Germanic man in all my life. He was beyond nice, he was wonderful. Dr. Z put Fil in such deep sleep she doesn’t even remember much of the hospital, including the unbelievable pain. He reset her jaw 3 times, 2 time this tech, Paul, watched over her and made sure she breathed. He was marvelous and something about his eyes, the way he unyieldingly cared for Fil in that moment, sacrificing comfort and entertainment (there were a few techs just lousing about not 4 yards away) to make sure Fil didn’t succumb to apnea.

The best part about having gone to Br@ack is that they didn’t just talk over Fil. They talked to her, even when she was drugged. They talked to me, kept me sane when she was under for a long time. Dr. Z didn’t ignore my concerns or comments, he expounded as much information that he had and never once grimaced or flinched when he had to come back in to reset her jaw. I could have cried (if I hadn’t already spent all my tears having a panic attack) they were all so lovely. It almost erased the fact that Dr. HugeBelly was a total ass. Almost.

Dr. Z was able to get Fil in to see an oral surgeon, one who pledged to see her, or if not him, someone in his practice. The 4th time it dislocated he left it out and phoned the surgeon who told us to go directly to him once she was discharged. And that we did. We flew down the streets like a bat out of hell. Fil was groggy, exhausted and worse of all, in pain. We got to the office and they threw a lot of paperwork at us. Eventually she got x-rays done and taken back to see the doctor. I was so relieved that I finally got about 20 minutes of sleep… right there… in the waiting room. But I realised that was a slippery slope so I got a cola to wake me up.

I got called back at about 10ish because Fil was apparently incredibly upset. When I walked into the room she was sobbing, hard. Apparently, the surgeon (Dr. H) doesn’t do jaw surgery. He’s just a wisdom teeth/replacement teeth kin of guy who hasn’t touched a jaw in forever. I was so disgusted and angry that he even agreed to see her I wanted to punch him in the face. But, after a LOT of crying and holding Fil, the doctor finally saw us together and we got a breakdown of what we can do.

Since he can’t physically do anything for her other than help reduce the muscular inflammation, he got us the names of two possible candidates to get Fil into a surgeon/dentist’s office. In Austin there’s a CHC, community health center, that provides limited assistance to those who have insurance (i.e. medicaid) but don’t have the money to pay for things out of pocket. It’s sliding scale fees, so since Fil makes no money as she hasn’t worked in almost 7 months, she’d have to pay a very small amount. It’s not nearly as good as the M.A.P card, but since she has medicaid it’s a no-go. But the CHC might just be the supplemental aid we need to get her going places. At LEAST a dentist.

There’s also an Oral/Maxillofacial Surgery school in San Antonio that might be able to see Fil and do surgery for free. There’s definitely a wait list, but from what I understand (what my dad told me) is that they’re able to do urgent care, which I’m sure being unable to eat qualifies as urgent.

While it is in San Antonio, it’s still a good long ways away. I don’t doubt that we could find help getting the gas and the hotel, we have an amazing support network of friends, family and even people we don’t know pitching for us. But it’s just the thought of being so far from home and not being able to bring Fil directly to the comfort of her bed after surgery that makes me queasy.

I’m so tired I could scream. Our 3rd ER visit in under 5 days. It feels like those Medical Mystery shows where this person is running from place to place begging for help and no one seems to be able to. I’m relieved to know that there are people who are explicitly on our side, helping us find  care and giving us all the love in the world. I only hope… and pray that things get better soon. How will we survive like this for much longer?

Random Bullets

• Fil and I are both out sick. Stabbing, blinding headaches that are not soothed by medicine. Sore throats, coughs, nauseau (vomitting on Fil’s behalf) etc. etc. It’s not been fun, and I took off class today in order to go to my doctor.
• At said doctor’s appointment, I got poked – testing my thyroid – and prescribed medication for IBS. Yaay. No really, I’m stoked about this because I’ve had gastrointestial issues for a year and I’m finally feeling some relief.
• She also gave me 5 anti-inflammatory refills so my hips will continue to sing with joy … and my period will stay mild.
• It’s actually freezing here, and we have our old table sitting on the porch. It should be fine, right?
• We joined a meetup group a while ago and it’s finally picking up pace. I’m even going to be co-organizing the group. We’re both so excited about meeting other gay families!

Bingo

Total obsessive organisation tackled for today.

I do mean total obsessive.

And yet I find zero satisfaction in that.

I’m convinced that stress/anxiety mixed with obvious OCD is no longer a good combination.

I feel lifeless almost, helplessly attacked by stress (worrying over things that have yet to happen) and suffocated by my need to organise.

I’m pretty positive I need to see my doctor.

All By Myself

Today is my first day on the job alone. For the past 2 weeks I have been steadily monitored (and trained, of course) by N, my trainer and cubical wall partner.

N is a truly wonderful trainer, and a good work buddy. I have no complaints about the other women – B, R and J – that I work with as they’re all incredibly friendly and wonderful.

But back to me being alone with… like, responsibilities.

While I’m thrilled to be left to my own devices – as I now have computer/e-mail/Oracle access – I’m still a bit verklempt at the idea of doing this without someone to reassure me that it’s okay. I’m sure I’ll survive. Especially since I don’t have too muchto do. Heh.

In other news, Christmas was wonderful. Since I’m currently at work I can’t post my favourite photos from the day, but I’ll get around to it… eventually. JT was spoiled, of course, by all grandparents, uncles, etc. Especially by my parents, who showered him with WWII paraphernalia (to our relief, at least he’ll learn things this break!) and the illusive Rubix Cube he so avidly sought. Hooray!

Fil and I agreed to wait until after the 1st to get each other presents. Financially it made sense, but also emotionally. We would get to treat eachother without worry about JT or our families. We’d probably be all dopey and make a whole day of it and just enjoy eachother without the stress of a very cranky 10 year old.

With all the joy of the season, we have been made starkly aware of JT’s inability to cope with his ADHD anymore. He is just an angry little kid, full-up of frustration and uninhibited anger. He flies off the rail when we give him simple tasks and pushes himself to extremes, even when he realises exactly what he’s doing. As parents we are pushed to our limits, scraped thin like too little butter. We have been patient, understanding and loving, while he continues to disrespect and be cruel to us. We’ve had enough and for our family’s sanity, we have to resolve this issue.

Fil’s making the appointment today.

Oh. And about Fil.

She has pneumonia (which, let me put out there, I told her she had) and probably another bladder infection. Her doctor thinks she has a mass on her kidney – possibly another cancerous tumour the ER missed – and plans to set her up for an MRI the second her medicaid goes through.  She’s being stubborn, but hurting, so she’s finally starting to cave a little and is making a doctor’s appointment.

In order to keep our head up during these times we’re thinking about next December. When everything will be okay.

God all I’m praying for is okay.

Sad

To start, here is our 2 year plan because I’m waaay too lazy to backtrack. Italicised items are school items, which tandem our 2 year plan.

• Summer ’08: Begin workout regiment. Discuss weight loss with PCP, now known as WonderLee or WL. Discuss plastic surgery with WL and begin researching local plastic surgeons. (Side note: get annoying, could become cancerous moles removed.) Complete BA and get into anatomy.
• August – December ’08: Continue workout regiment, accompanied by supplements for weight loss. Goal is to obtain a healthy pre-op weight (note: NOT desired weight) and general mental well being related to physical appearance. Complete total course load. Anatomy,  Human G&D, Maths.
• Winter Break ’08-’09: Have breast reduction surgery (right breast hypertrophy). Take the whole break off from anything like school. Start a savings account AND get a cell phone plan for family.
• January – May ’09: Post recovery, return to normal workout regiment and continue weight loss to desired weight. Finish all pre-requisites for nursing school and file the application. Discuss with counselors about an accelerated degree course.
• Summer ’09: Start looking for houses in desired Austin area (south-west Austin, Barton Springs area or Duval area), squirreling away money for substantial down payment (think, $10,000+ which according to a real estate broker is a great down payment) and if needed, finding a donor (if UD is needed, split savings into frozen sperm fund). If possible, start accelerated degree course, finish 1 semester of nursing.
• August – December ’09: Keep saving for a house/sperm/baby. Keep on the accelerated course, DON NOT DROP THE BALL!
• January ’10 – May ’10: Start temping, wonder if VIP FF account is worth the money. Maybe do a few OPKs for confirmed ovulation. Re: Last bullet.
• Summer ’10: If nursing degree is obtained, start finding a job and start waiting for the insurance plan to kick in. If no degree, re: last bullet.
• August – December ’10: Should finish nursing school at the latest. Job finding during winter break. Most like, TTC begins here. (2 years after the plan was written!) At least, serious ovulation tracking and a definite internal check-up (due to last years PID/miscarriage, there could be unknown fallopian damage, or whatever) Adopt JT and look into common law/name changes.

The rest you really can’t bullet point. Our whole plan relies heavily on the completion of my degree. I will be nearing 22 and I would definitely LIKE to be pregnant before we cross that line (I’m thinking in terms of Fil’s age, really). But mostly I want to be out of school and into the field. Finishing college, means to me, more financial stability and emancipation from my parents. I am most excited about the emancipation thing. Being under my parents wing is comforting at times when we don’t have anywhere or anyone else to run to, but it’s taxing. Constantly being aware that our future plans (a house, more children) do not line up with their life plan for yours truly makes me nauseous. At any moment JT could spill the beans that in one or two years he’s going to be a big brother, and then we’ll have to deal with a whole can of worms. If I’m in the profession, and we either are on our way to owning a home or already own one, there is NOTHING my parents even have the option of being disappointed in.

Wasn’t it my first post where I, in a long-winded way, said I’d much rather have our child RIGHTNOW than wait until we were, uh, ready? Didn’t Fil agree? I think the Att of a year ago was way more immature about having a child than the Att of now. Not saying that I wasn’t ready back then, because I was. We would have perservered and made it through a pregnancy with no qualms. Fil would have worked two jobs, I would have chosen a quicker degree (like, medical coding which is a year) and we would have been okay, as we are okay now.

However, I think taking the drastic steps we were planning (sometimes I’m glad we lost the option of WonderSeed, it’s awful what happened to him, but it threw a definite monkeywrench into the plan and made us wait) would have ruined us. Financially we would have never been as stable as we are now. We would have lost the trust of my parents (and probably permanently lost them in our lives, our children would literally have no grandparents) and possibly ended up a wrecked couple squabbling over pennies that went out with the trash.

You can say, for our children’s sake, we make this long winded plan towards financial stability. The stability Fil has always craved (a home, the same partner until death, children and the option to retire in the future) will come to us. JT will probably spend a good amount of his teen years envying his younger siblings for the simple stability and continuity in their lives that his youth has lacked. Perhaps the majority of his issues are sprung from the fact that everything changes in his life after 2 or 3 years – new house, new school, new state, new parent. But, I do believe that if he gets the stability he needs (we’re almost there, at least he’s had two parents for a year and we’ve promised NEVER to move out of Texas) he will be a better boy for it.

Our plan seems logical to me, comfortable in every way. I’m at peace with waiting to have a baby. While I sometimes look out at the sheer number of pregnant women around me (seriously, every where we go it’s preggo-extravaganza) and wish I was one of their numbers, I know soon I will be. I know the reward of waiting will be an amazing life for them.

However, it seems Fil is increasingly uncomfortable with the plan. Most days she’s either sad or down-trodden at the idea of waiting. Sometimes I know she doesn’t just want to TALK about it, she wants to do it. It may just be because we have a donor now and it could just happen so easily. She probably keeps the majority of her qualms silent because I really want to wait until I’m at least happy with myself (i.e. post-op me) before donating my body to baby. She knows if we don’t wait, I may end up hating myself a lot more than I did when we met. I only wish there was some way for me to ease her sadness over waiting.

On that note, I must end this loong post. I commend anyone who got this far. Now I have to make that first bit up there (about WL) come true and make appointments with her. Also, laundry has to be folded. Yay…

Technically, Surgical

Fil had her surgery yesterday. She woke up, and is currently sleeping in an upright position not 1 foot away from me.

Her tendon was not ripped, instead she had bone spurs and fractures which required bone shaving, reshaping and repairing. Her tendon was a little frayed, so they had to reinforce it with a supportive sheath.

She was hooked up to a pain pump that pumped 4 milligrams of mordicane (I think) into her surgery site every hour for 48 hours. About 2 hours ago, the pump hose started leaking out of her (due to inflammation) and causing her a lot of pain. So I called her doctor and his assistant told me to remove her bandages and make sure the hose hadn’t slipped out of her. I took it out, even though it was still inside of her, because the medicine was leaking out and not really doing anything for her bone pain. It was terrifying and I had to work very hard to keep calm and not have a panic attack. We had to have Beavis help keep her breathing and focus on the only thing she had control over.

She’s also hooked up to a cooler that circulates ice cold water through an ice pack that we keep attached over her shoulder at all times. I have to replace the ice every few hours and every time she needs to get up to pee, smoke, eat, I have to disconnect her from the hose and help her to wherever she needs to go.

Last night was almost literally hell. We have both gotten so used to falling asleep in the spooning position. We woke up every few hours to go to the bathroom, to take pain pills and to make sure everything was okay.

My parents came by at 11 today with A LOT of groceries for us, including a complete dinner for tonight (which was lasagna, fresh French beans, garlic bread and a dessert of chocolate pudding and cool whip, all made by me).  That honestly saved us, because I had no idea what I was going to do for dinner tonight.

This was definitely not a well written post, but I am really emotionally and physically drained at the moment. I know that Fil is going to wake up in an hour or so because  she needs her pain meds and I need to change the ice in her cooler. So I’m going to lay down and try and get a few hours in before she needs me.

A Quickie

So, Fil seems to be okay. She’s not dying, but she can’t go to work. I’m pretty sure she’s not going to be going in to work tonight, either.

I’m not feeling to hot. But this is kind of normal now. I’ve had nausea and exhaustion for the past few weeks. I’m pretty sure I’m going to go see a doctor. I hate doctors.

But you know, my doctor’s great. And it’s not that expensive for me. It shouldn’t be too bad if I’m on antibiotics or something, or if I get a shot. But still, I loathe the process of being told what’s wrong with me, like any normal human out there.

So, I guess I’ll call ARC tomorrow on my way home from school.

These past few posts have been extremely short because Fil is alarmingly needy when she’s sick. It’s because I take care of her, feed her, give her her meds and she’s so not used to it. So, I have very little time to update for myself.